CF to IDE

March 14, 2007 9:13 AM

How can I plug an IDE hard drive into a compact flash slot?

I'd like to attach a hard drive to my camera via its compact flash slot. Research leads me to believe that this might be possible. Seems like there are plenty solutions for doing it the other way round.

I've been looking for some kind of connector that will plug into the compact flash slot but my search has been unsuccesful. I imagine someone out there might sell a CF cable (sort of a mini IDE cable).

Does anyone have any ideas? Does such a connector exist?

posted by popcassady to technology (7 comments total)

I've never seen such a thing...the other way around, sure.

You could always use something like this.
posted by Cat Pie Hurts at 9:32 AM on March 14, 2007

I was really looking for a way to replace the CF card with a hard drive.
posted by popcassady at 9:41 AM on March 14, 2007

Your issue here will be power. You almost certainly won't be able to use a 3.5" desktop hard drive (requires too much power or 12V of power). Your camera provides either 3.3V or 5V to the CF card (all CF cards can operate on either) -- all 2.5" laptop hard drives operate on 5V, and I'd guess that your camera doesn't provide sufficient current to spin the drive up initially, even if it does provide 5V rather than 3.3V.

You could potentially do this at a stationary location, using a separate power supply for the camera, but that doesn't seem like what you want here. If you chose to do that, you'd just need to get some gender changers and extenders for the CF slot, since CF cards are "pin-to-pin" with IDE (meaning there's a direct correspondence, and thus if you use gender changers to invert a CF-to-IDE connector it will work).
posted by j.edwards at 9:46 AM on March 14, 2007

I was going to power the hard drive seperately. It's the CF gender changer I was stuck at. Any idea where I could find one?
posted by popcassady at 9:59 AM on March 14, 2007

The Microdrive, originally by IBM, was designed to use the CF slot. Currently versions are made by Hitachi and Seagate, up to 12GB with Hitachi coming out with a 20GB this year. Also there's the Magicstor copy which has terrible reviews, apparently.

They aren't cheap compared to desktop and laptop drives but they will do what you want.
posted by 6550 at 11:57 AM on March 14, 2007

Well, Froogle shows tons of hits for the opposite of what you want (i.e. use a CF card as an IDE device) but I checked the majority of those hits and none of them allow what you want. So it looks like it doesn't exist. You can of course get a microdrive as 6550 suggests but it will be much more $/GB than a standard 2.5" or 3.5" drive.
posted by Rhomboid at 1:47 PM on March 14, 2007

It's the CF gender changer I was stuck at. Any idea where I could find one?

I'd guess you'd have to have it manufactured or repurpose some other connector for it. I've desoldered IDE connectors from old motherboards before to use as IDE gender changers, but I don't know of any source offhand.
posted by j.edwards at 3:25 PM on March 14, 2007